The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-11-14

upon BelOn and mounted upon them TO
scale the heavens, and have laid down pant
ing with physical exhaustion before mole
hill They who might have shrilled Senates
and marshalled armies, and startled the
world with the shock of their scientific bat
teries, have passed their lives in picking up
prescriptions for indigestion They owned
all the thunderbotS of Jupiter, but could
not get out of their rocking-chair to use
them. George Washington, in early life,
was poor speller, and spelled hat
h-a-double-t, and ream of paper, he suelled
'rheam, ," but he knew enough to spell out
the independence of this country from for
eign oppression. The knowledge of the
schools is important, but there are other
things quite as important.
just as great is the wrong done when the
mind is cultivated and the heart neglected.
The youth of this day are seldom denied any
scholarly attainments. Our schools and
seminarieS are ever growing in efficiency,
and the students are conducted through all
the realms of philosophy, and art, and Ian
guage, and mathematics The most hered
itary obtuseness gives way before the on
slaught of adroit instructors, But there is
a development of infinite Importance which
mathematics and the dead languages can
not affect. The more mental power the
more capacity for evil unless coupled with
religious restraint. You discover what ter
sesses when you see Scaliger with his
scathing denunciations assaulting the best
men of his time, and Blount
and Spinoza and Bolngbroke lead
ing their hosts of followers into
the ail-consuming fires of skepticism and
infidelity. Whether knowledge is a mighty
good or an unmitigated evil depends entire
ly upon which course it takes. The river
rolling on between round banks makes all
the valley laugh with golden wheat and
rank grass, and catching hold the wheel Of
mill and factory, whirls it with great indus
tries. But, breaking away from restraints,
and dashing over banks in red wrath, it
washes away harveSts from their moorings
and makes the valleys shrink with the ca
tastrophe Fire in the furnace heats the
house or drives the steamer; but uncon-
trolled, warehouses go down in awful crash
before it, and in few hours half city will
lie in black ruin, walls and towers and
churches and monuments. You must ac-
company the education OF the intellect with
the education of the heart, or you are rous
ing up within your child an energy which
will be blasting and terrific Better
wicked Ounce than wicked philosopher.
The fourth error often committed in the
training of children is the suppression of
childish sportfulness. The most triumphant
death of any child that ever knew was
that of Scoville Haynes McCOllum. A few
days before that, he was at my house in
Syracuse, and he ran like a deer and his
halloo made the woods echo You could
hear him coming a block off, so full was he
of romp and laughter and whistle. Don't
put religion on your child as a straight
Jacket Parents after having for a good
many years been jostled about in the rough
world often lose their vivacity, and are as
tonished to see how their children can act so
thoughtlessly of the earnest world all about
them. That is a cruel parent who quencheS
any of the light in a childs soul. Instead
of arresting its sportfulness, go forth and
help him trundle the hoop, and fly
the kite, and build the snow castle.
Those shoulders are too little to
be wrinlxled those feet are too sprightly to
go along at a funeral pace. God bless their
young hearts! Now is the time for them to
be sportful. Let them romp and sing aud
laugh, and 90 with rush and hurrah In
this way they gather UP a surplus OF energy
for future life. For the child that walks
around with a scowl, dragging his feet as
though they were weights and sitting down
by the hour in moping and glumbling |
prophesy life of utter inanitioE and dis
content. Sooner hush the robins in the air
until they are silentaS bat. and lecture
the frisking lambs on the hillside until they
walk like old sheep, rather than put exhila-
rant childhood in the stocks.
The fifth error in the training OF childhood
is the postponement of its moral culture
until too late. Multitudes of children be-
cause of their precocty have been urged
into depths of study where they ought not
to go, and their intellects have been over
burdened, and overstrained and battered to
pieces against Latin grammers and algebras,
and coming forth into practical life they will
hardly rise to nediocrity, and there is now
a stuffing and cramming system of educa-
tion in the schools of our country that is
deathful to the teacher who have to en-
force it, and destructive to the children
who must submit to the process. You find
children at nine and ten years of age with
school lessons only appropriate for children
of fifteen. If children are kept in school
and studying from nine to three o'clock, no
home study except music ought to be re-
quired of them. Six hours of study is
endgh for any child. The rest of the day
ought TO be devoted to recreation and pure
fun. But you cannot begin too early the
moral culture of a child, or ON too
complete a scale. You can look
back upon your own life and remember
what mighty impressions were made
upon you at five or six years of age. Oh,
that child does not sit so silent during your
conversation to be influenced by it. You
say he does not understand Although
nluCfl OF your DuFdSeOiDRy lS DeyOHu Hl5
grasp, he is gathering up from your talk in
fuences which Will affect his immortal des-
tiny. From the question he asks you long
afterward you find that he understood all
about what you were saying. You think
the child does not appreciate that beautiful
cloud, but its most delicate lines are re-
hected into the very depths Of the youthful
nature, and a score of years from now you
will see the shadow of that cloud in the
tastes and refinements developed. The song
with which you sing chat child to sleep will
echo through all its life, and ring back from
the very arches OF heaven. / think that
often the first seven years of a child's
life decides whether it shall be irascible,
or gentle, truthful, frank, obedient, honest
and Christian. The present generations OF
men will pass off very much as they are now.
Although the gospel is offered them, the gen
eral rule is that drunkards die drunkards,
thieves die thieves, libertines die Iibertines.
Therefore 10 the youth we turn. Before
they sow wild oats get them to SOW wheat
and barley. You fill the bushel measure
with good corn, and there will be no room
for husks. Glorious Alfred Goodman was
converted at ten years Of age. At Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, during the progress Of re-
ligious meeting III the Methodist church,
while many were kneeing at the foot Of the
altar, tnis boy knelt in corner OF the church
all by himself and said: Precious Saviour,
thou art saving others, ., wilt thou not save
me!n A Presbyterian elder knelt beside him
and led him into the light Enthroned
A Ta1i IRON hn